Tuesday, June 06, 2006

Banoo Traditional Persian Cuisine

Sweeeeeet! Thanks to a couple reader's tips (thanks, guys!), I came by this place tonight (7 Mohamed Sultan Road, 6235-7989), and left a very happy man. This place looked pretty promising even before we sat down, as I noticed bottles of somagh sitting on each table. Surely enough, when the food arrived, the koobideh pulled through, with a little pack of butter already waiting for you on top of the fluffy rice, a squeeze of lemon already on it, and raw onions already waiting for you (I have to proactively ask for them at Persepolis). And the kebabs sat on the grill for just the right amount of time, making them piping hot, evenly cooked, and very tasty.

Now, the only strange thing here was the tiny size of the kebabs. Seriously, they were only about 60% (both in length and thickness) of normal-sized koobideh, thus forcing me to order not just one, but two extra skewers (for a total of four)...and even then I was still hungry! (And that was also after a kashk-e baademjaan eggplant starter too...I thus kept ordering like a pig, getting a Persian barley soup in the end, which was unexpectedly sour - but in a good way.) They explained to me that they intentionally provided small kebabs in an effort to align with locally-sized portions, but that they will also be coming out with new menus soon (despite the place being just one week old!) that will feature the full-sized dish in all of its original glory. I guess the smaller sizes made them easier to cook though...the food *did* come out surprisingly quickly.

Anyway, they had quite a few other dishes on the existing menu that might be worth a shot, although I'll be coming back for the koobideh. This place is far better than Persepolis and is definitely the best Persian place in Singapore thus far (Persepolis was a bit inconsistent anyway). There is a new place called Shiraz that is set to open at Clarke Quay soon though...it will be interesting to see how it fares (wow - what's with this sudden spurt in Persian spots in Singapore lately?). Either way, I'm just so happy that after so many years of living in Singapore, I finally find a place that came pretty darned close to one of my faves from back home. And these guys are open until 11:30 PM (longer on weekends), so there will be no excuse for not coming back. Heck, I'm gonna try to go back for lunch one of these days this week. Rock on!

Went last week on the basis of what I read. Let me tell you we all left hungry and unsatisfied. Most things on the menu were not available. The appetizers was very small, needed magnifying glass to see the feta cheese, there was way more rice than meat in the kabab platters and the kababs were dry and tough. You would think at $17 a platter they could have been more generous. The stew on the other hand was much better. I would not recommend, will keep looking for another Persian resturant.

hello, i m half iranian and i ll be in singapore on the 15th of march for 3 days and it s exactly during chahar shanbe souri an iranian event so i would love to find an iranian community or something to celebrate this event with them, can you help me??? cya thx, Maryam Ghane i m on facebook